Rep. Charles Rangel isn’t optimistic about the prospects of the super-committee coming to an agreement on closing the deficit – and he isn’t particularly rooting for a breakthrough.

“The whole concept of 12 people doing what the Congress should be doing is one that is unacceptable to me,” Rangel, D-N.Y., said on ABC’s “Top Line” today. “The secret vibrations that we get that are leaked from the Republicans and the Democrats is not the way to run a country.”

“I’m just saddened about this process. I’ve been in the Congress for over 40 years and never thought something like this could happen to our great country.”

Rangel, the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also had praise for the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, adding that he’s met with organizers to discuss their goals.

“What they are doing now — so many hard-working Americans feel that way, and they can’t and won’t get out there to demonstrate. The absence of our spiritual leaders there, I don’t understand. But the truth of the matter is, people are mad as hell,” he said.

“It is sad, and they [voters] believe government should do something, and you know, they are right. We are fighting each other, and Republicans are talking about getting rid of [President] Obama, in all of the circus like the debates we have from the Republican Party.”

Rangel also shared his thoughts about those debates: “The only intelligent candidate that is out there is Jon Huntsman, and he doesn’t stand a chance in hell from the tea party.”

As for last night’s debate: “Actually I returned to the comedy hour thinking I would see the debate. And so, I tell you that as an American I am embarrassed by the lack of quality of competitors. The way I look at is as an American that we’re going to win as Democrats, but if the whole world is watching, I am embarrassed for them to believe that these Republican candidates intend or want to be the leaders of the free world.”

“The best campaign that the president has, I believe, is to just concentrate on economic growth,” Rangel added. “And let the American people just decide what they want to do in 2012. I don’t think that there is any need to campaign. I think there is a great need for the president to provide the leadership that they — there is a vacuum right now.”